


Breadth

by varooooom



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff, Insomnia, M/M, Rescue Missions, Sort of? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-24 06:22:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2571338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/varooooom/pseuds/varooooom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is not an operative. He's not an asset and he's sure as Hell not an Avenger. He isn't anyone's brother and he's no one's son, but - maybe, he can eventually be someone's friend.</p><p>But first: he needs to kill some Russians.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breadth

**Author's Note:**

> Yay, this one is less awful than the last! Nat needs some help and Bucky's the only one crazy enough to offer it. I mostly wanted to focus on his relationship with the other Avengers, both in his own head and in reality, so this centres around his feelings of self-worth and belonging. It's a little sappy. Just roll with it.
> 
> Thanks again to [remuke](http://archiveofourown.org/users/remuke) for hating me forever, and this one is devoted to my super cutie Kerry. I love you, bee. ♥

Bucky wakes up ( insofar as laying still and closing his eyes to convince Steve it's okay to finally get some fucking rest can be called 'sleeping' ) to the sound of footsteps down the hall. His senses are too attuned to this kind of shit to think he's imagined it, but he still waits a minute to locate the source. Steve's chest rises and falls beside him, even and clean breathing in a way it never was before ( and he remembers that now, the rattling and coughing sounds that used to come from a much smaller frame ). The sheets on the bed rustle and shift as Steve rolls onto his side and blindly pats around the bed until his fingers find Bucky's side, a single point of contact. There's the near-silent humming of the Tower's air-conditioning unit and the faint creaking that comes from any building that stands this tall above the surface - and these are normal sounds, ordinary late-night sounds that keep him company when he isn't sleeping ( which is always, much to Steve's dismay ).

But there's something else. A rhythmic shifting, the soft pad of feet moving back and forth in an unconscious pattern. Someone is pacing down the hall.

Bucky inhales deeply, holds his breath for three seconds, lets it back out. He's been trying to train himself out of cataloging minute details like this, both because he's no longer required to stab everything that makes an errant noise but also because they have roommates and they deserve some privacy. Barton still hasn't quite forgiven him for poking his head into the room while he was quietly singing lullabies to his gear as he cleaned and filed it all away. It was cute. Everyone else in the Tower agreed when he told them about it. Clint's sulk has been deemed one of his deadlier weapons.

Still. Steve had impressed upon him that he should consider giving folks their space, especially when they're on their own private floor ( Tony is still trying to figure out how Bucky moves between them without using the elevator ) - but the footsteps are down the hall. They're on Steve's floor ( not quite 'theirs' yet, but he's - he'll get there ) which means it should be fair game for investigation.

Especially given everything that's going on right now. He might not understand the inclination just yet, but he wants to see. Wants to know who it is and see if - if maybe there's something -

He slips out of the bed without waking Steve easily enough, though his big lumbering hand still unconsciously pats around in search of Bucky's warmth and eventually curls up against his chest with a prominent _frown_ on Steve's face. Bucky almost wants to laugh or crawl back into bed and kiss away the petulance between his brows or maybe take a picture as Nat has informed him is a fun thing to do when he stumbles upon incriminating situations. But this is only for him and there's something important outside the door. 

Someone. Someone important.

Now _there's_ a wonder.

Outside of the bedroom, the occasional heavy breath ( not quite a sigh ) joins inventory with the footsteps, and Bucky stays silent as he moves down the hallway towards the living room. He can guess who it is before he gets there, because there are only two people crashing in Steve's guest rooms right now and Sam's late-night terrors either have him brewing coffee and marathoning TV or out for a run, which only leaves one possible alternative.

It's still a surprise to see her, though. Maria Hill is the textbook example of a tightly-wound impenetrable fortress of a dame. The secrets she's been made to keep will die with her, and she prides herself on keeping them out of her expressions and her carefully measured words. Bucky's familiar with the sort, both from the US Army and his time with HYDRA; the difference between the latter and Hill is that she's an actual fucking human being beneath the layers of paranoia and professional detachment. She laughs and smiles and sometimes even lets her hair down, both metaphorically and literally, when she's hanging around the Avengers. Bucky has built mental case files on each of them and hers is still missing information in places; he thinks he's gathering another piece right now, and he's no stranger to the lingering guilt that comes with his instinctual programming, but he starts calculating it in with the rest of what he knows.

She's still in her pajamas, a simple pair of grey shorts and a plain white shirt: non-descript, functional, her own personal take on military standard dress. Her hair is up, again because it's not the same style she wore at dinner, which means she's thinking - but it's messy, hairs out of place and a missed tendril curling around her neck, which means she did it in a rush with shaky hands that are tucked under her arms defensively now. Her pacing takes her three steps towards the kitchen and the hallway back to the rooms ( where Bucky keeps himself tightly pressed to the wall, but it doesn't seem likely he'll be caught which is another clue all its own ) and then three and a half steps back into the living room, that last half-step of hesitation the sign that she's going to be here all night.

Shit. He contemplates leaving her to whatever machinations are stirring in her head, or maybe going to wake up Steve and sending in someone far more capable of handling the situation, but - Sam says it's good to build connections with his team. If nothing else, Bucky can relate to insomnia.

He lets his footsteps fall heavy enough to creak on the wooden floorboards as a means of announcing his presence, but she doesn't seem to notice him at all until he speaks with a croaky, "Can't sleep?"

It's a pointless question with an obvious answer, one he very clearly already knows, but he's still learning that it's okay to say more than the bare minimum to get his message across. This isn't a mission report or a request for intel; he's checking up on someone that he might like to be able to call a friend one day, if he remembers the meaning of the word. For now, it's just making sure one of his team members is okay - and it pays off if only in the way Maria startles at the sound of his voice, hand reaching toward her waistband for a gun that isn't there.

Well. That means she's serious, whatever she might be dwelling on, and he can't hold that against her. Things have been tense all across the Tower in the wake of recent intel informing them that Natasha's latest mission went sideways. S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't around to call any more ops but Fury still has some strings to pull and there are answers that need questioned, things that tumbled out of the D.C. leak that are pressing enough for their little ragtag team of misfits to get involved. Bucky keeps his nose out of it ( largely by way of a certain star spangled jackass conveniently sidelining him with chores or vacations when something comes up ) but living in the Tower means constant exposure to the rough way things are handled without a solid structure behind them.

Everyone knows Nat was the most qualified for this mission. The _only_ , really, when most of their names and faces are too widespread for covert ops and Barton isn't as versed in the deep undercover necessary to carry this one out. That's not the problem here. The problem isn't even that their inside man was found DOA and communications were cut to the sound of gunfire and angry Slavic shouting. The problem is that none of them, not a single one of them, has a goddamn clue how to get her back safely. Pepper put Tony on house arrest for how insistently his fingers are itching for his suit ( ' _I could do it five, maybe ... twenty minutes tops, and tell me it wouldn't be a sweet notch on our bedpost to carry Black Widow away from explosions into the sunset_ \- ); Steve, Sam, and Bruce keep constant news feed and surveillance of the area running on a half dozen different screens in what's been officially dubbed the Fuck Off Room; and no one's seen Barton at all since word came down of the situation, though JARVIS has reliably informed them he is still somewhere on the premises.

And now - now Maria Hill is pacing in the living room at two in the morning. Guilt hangs heavy all throughout the Tower and it's there on her shoulders when she folds her arms back across her chest, trying and failing for nonchalance.

"Yeah." She doesn't make eye contact with him, but seems to glare at a spot somewhere near his feet instead. It's a confession of sorts, one Bucky isn't sure he's qualified to be hearing. "It's always like this."

And this is where Bucky gets lost. He's still - he might be able to call himself human most days, and he's reclaimed his name from a past that follows him around like the classic ball and chain, but he can't quite process the emotional input behind things like this yet. Part of him wants to be amused in the face of her self-flagellating vigilance in the face of what is, _honestly_ , no one's fault, but the other part, the dominant part of his brain and his programming, is cataloging this information to try and understand. The cogs keep turning as he reads everything she's saying beyond her words - the exhaustion in her posture, the worry and guilt and frustration in her voice, and of course, that little jump of surprise that says so much more about her ruined state of being than anything else. Maria is hurting over this, plain and simple, and Bucky isn't entirely sure what to do with this information now he has it.

His arms fold across his chest in the same defensive gesture as her own, a furrow dragging his brows together. He should've woken Steve for this, or Sam, or shut his damn brain down for the evening like he's supposed to. This is - difficult, and he can't pretend he understands, which leaves him clueless on the approach. There ain't much to be done against misplaced blame; there are just some people in this world too good for their line of duty. People like Steve and Sam and now Maria too, that only want to do good in a world full of bad. They take it personally when cards fall the wrong way, even when it's just what was dealt them.

Bucky doesn't get that. He's never been a hero, even before becoming HYDRA's plaything. James Buchanan Barnes has always been the bullet in someone else's gun: aim, fire, and he'll fly true without blinking. Worry, he gets, when he worried every day of his ( first ) life for Steve and his family, and he's got more than enough guilt to drown a man, but the genuine distress that Maria carries on her shoulders now? Bucky can't pretend he understands.

He thinks of Natasha instead, Natalia Alianovna Romanova, whom he's met across two of the three timelines that coexist in his mind. They're of a kin the same way Maria and Steve might be, in a manner, because they're the blank slates that other people write their dirty deeds on. He puts himself in her place now, lost across enemy lines with everything going the exact fucking opposite of how it should've and no clear way out of the shitstorm. He knows that one intimately, and knows what it takes to carve your way through it alone: cunning, calculation, and a cold sort of ruthlessness to do whatever is necessary at any cost.

Natasha is going to be fine. Maria probably already knows that, and Bucky should probably be the last person to remind her. So he keeps his arms crossed and leans against the doorframe, brows slightly furrowed in thought. When he speaks, it's in his default deadpan that comes from seven decades of staying silent outside of clipped commands, to-the-point mission reports, and screaming. It has the unintended effect of unsettling people that can't read his tone for humor or threat or childlike confusion, which is what he's counting on now.

"If you're always worried about your agents when they're trained for this kind of shit, does that make you the spy-mom?"

It takes a moment, but Bucky always hits his mark. Maria stares incredulously for exactly four and a half seconds before surprised laughter has her shaking her head and scrubbing a tired hand over her face. It's a nice sound, comfortable in its awkward sincerity, and it makes him smile, faint as it might always be.

"I guess so," she sighs, a weary concession. She drops her arms and sits on the couch, not quite relaxing so much as settling into her well-exposed vulnerability. He'll call it a win. The look she spares him from across the room isn't critical or calculating, but it is some measure of contemplative. Sizing him up, maybe; of all of those under the ever-growing Avengers umbrella, she's been one of the most reluctant to trust him. He doesn't blame her. He _did_ kill her boss, however temporarily. He's about to take his short-lived welcome and call it a night before she speaks up again with exhaustion bearing heavy in her tone.

"I worry. Every time. Even when there's no other choice."

And that - somehow, in some deep-rooted part of him, that resonates. The weight that every member of this team carries varies in shape and size and how well-suited they are to handling the burden, but this - this is something that sticks with all of them, the knowledge that every day, every time one of them rushes out to save the day, there is always the possibility that they won't come back. Bucky's chest tightens with something distantly, _achingly_ familiar. He still doesn't know where he fits into this equation, where he stands with the rest of the team for all that Steve insists he _is_ a part of the fucked up sense of family that they've built, and he - he doesn't -

"I could've taken it," he blurts. The words come mostly unbidden, and he's surprised by the knowledge that he means it almost as much as the fact that he said it at all. The Avengers have given him a safe space, have helped him along in his recovery when by rights, they should've had him locked up in a warehouse somewhere ( again, and he doesn't always succeed in perishing the thought ). He isn't good but he's _better_ , and - and the bone-weary look on Maria's face means something to him.

That's something. He could've taken on this mission for them, even further removed from the situation than Natasha when the world still doesn't really believe he exists. A ghost. He takes a step further into the room, though he doesn't move to sit or even approach beyond that. His face stays clear, expressionless as ever when he's still learning to emote after seventy years on and off of ice, but his voice and his eyes still speak of something earnest and pleading, steely and unyielding. A child looking for approval from his mother, or a soldier standing before a superior, awaiting instruction.

Back in the bedroom, Steve is probably getting an ulcer.

"I could go in," he states, less of an offer and more of a declaration. He could do this - if it's needed. Or even wanted. If it'd calm the other Avengers, if it'd help Maria rest easy. Natasha might be able to get herself out eventually, but it'd be swifter and possibly even cleaner with the Winter Soldier's assistance. He could be that again for them, a willing member instead of a voiceless weapon, and he thinks he might even like to. Few have helped him more than Natasha. If he could help bring her home - it might actually make this _home_.

This matters to him, he realizes, and that scares him just a little bit, in all the ways that investing in things that might be destined to fall short always will. His heart starts racing in the seconds that Maria's surprise shifts into consideration and the undoubtable calculations she's running in her head. It's a fucking Herculean feat, trying every day to turn off his programming and stop attempting to read every nuance of a situation with someone, especially when he most often finds fear or disgust or worst of all, _pity_ in the eyes that manage to look directly at him. The rejection he always expects ( he's a broken, malfunctioning tool that no longer has a purpose to serve ) so rarely comes, but his heart beats too hard in the minutes that pass before Maria surprises him just as much as any of the Avengers do when they don't run screaming.

"I'd have to talk to Rogers," she says smoothly, professionally, "but I don't disagree that you could do it."

It's not faith, not really; maybe desperation to get Natasha back home, or at least an objective understanding of his uses. But she doesn't look at him like he's broken, doesn't immediately tell him to stand down and let someone else handle things. There's a small flare of pride, and though he doesn't smile, his face does lighten a bit. His heart _aches_ and he's seven years old again, praying to a god he no longer believes in that he won't let down that single burst of sunlight that promises a better tomorrow.

"I'll talk to him." This seems important, and he wants to do it. Maria isn't a handler or his master, she's - an acquaintance, a familiar face that doesn't make him feel threatened, and he _wants_ to help. He won't let Steve think otherwise. "It's my choice. I know I can do this."

Maria gives him one last considering look before sparing him a smile, and it's the first time in the last seven months that he thinks he might actually be able to belong here.

* * *

Steve, predictably, doesn't respond well. Bucky waits a few hours before bringing it up, crawling back into bed and letting Steve's subconscious octopus tendencies pull him into the furnace of his body. Bucky tucks his head against his broad chest and tries not to let adrenaline and anxiety keep him from slipping into the easy comfort of being in Steve's arms, even manages an hour or so of sleep himself before the Sun starts rising. Even then, even after Steve wakes slowly with a bleary-eyed smile and a sleepy ' _mornin', pal_ ' that carries an old Brooklyn drawl that only slips out when he's waking up like this, as well as the sleep-stink of morning breath that Bucky reliably informs him is a rude way to greet your best guy first thing, he holds off on telling him outright.

It's not until they're upright and Steve's about to make his standard offer of joining him and Sam on their morning run ( that Bucky only feels welcome to accept maybe twenty percent of the time ) that Bucky says he might be otherwise preoccupied. It's all hilariously downhill from there. Steve always does his best not to shout at Bucky out of some misguided idea that being mad at him will trigger the same submissive vacancy that they found him in a year ago, but they get damn close to it the more Steve tries drilling information out of him.

"Who put you up to this?" he demands, his best disapproving father glare in place with his hands firmly perched on his hips to boot. Bucky almost wants to laugh.

" _No one_ , Steve, how many times do I gotta say that? No one's bullying me on the playground, tryin' to get me to eat dirt or launch a full-scale incursion into Belarus," Bucky huffs.

"That's exactly the problem here, Buck! You wanna go into a dark zone _alone_ , no backup, no radio command, and - and for all we know, Nat could already be out of the country," he retorts with a vague gesture at the far wall before dropping his hand back to his side with an audible slap. "How are you even going to find her in the middle of nowhere?"

Later, much later, Natasha is going to make him pay for the easy way he shrugs and says "I taught her everything she knows, it'll be a piece 'a cake," because Steve's gaping promises disaster for the both of them in the near to distant future. 

They can't get into it now, though, not when they've wasted enough time arguing here. He knew it'd be difficult, but with how long they've been at it, that aching fear from earlier this morning is starting to feel more like a fire, just waiting to burn them both. It's not that he thinks Steve doesn't trust him, it's that - he's trying to trust himself, and Steve's overprotective bullshit too easily comes off as doubt. Getting him to realize that his good intentions aren't always the right approach is something Bucky couldn't figure out then and sure as Hell won't figure out now.

But he has to try. He _wants_ to do this. When no answers seem forthcoming, Steve gives an exasperated sigh and drags his hands through his hair for the third time this morning, so Bucky reaches out to snatch one between his own, encased by metal and flesh on both sides.

"Listen to me," he tries, tugging gently to get Steve to actually look at him. Sincerity is hard, and articulating himself is even harder, but this is worth the fight. "I want to do this."

"You don't have to, though," Steve says quietly, almost dejected. Almost no one can outlast that damned Rogers kid when it comes to a battle of stubbornness, but they've always been each other's weakness. Bucky's reminded very suddenly of something he never should've forgotten, of another time in another place when they stood on the precipice of something big. Something defining. The words almost seem scripted, then. "You've got nothing to prove."

Bucky laughs. He has to. Otherwise, he might break down, and there'd be no coming back from that. He can't stop now. It's taken too much to get here, twenty six years of fighting private back-alley brawls, then seventy-four of fighting someone else's wars, only to wind up right back in the same goddamn place. The answer is still the same, for the both of them.

"I do." 

It's a rasp, a whispered confession to the only man Bucky ever believed could be a real saint, and he hates himself for still needing to find himself inside of Steve. For being weak and for doing wrong, for trying so desperately to be something better. The points they try to prove always seem to be validated in the other, two sides of a coin that never stops spinning. Steve frowns and Bucky knocks his metal knuckles against his thick skull to make sure he feels it. 

"Not to anyone else, Lord knows I don't give a damn about any of that, 'cause I could spend a lifetime saving puppies and kittens from burning orphanages and still never earn the world's approval. Not after all I've done." Steve squeezes his hand, frowning even deeper, and Bucky gives him a sad excuse for a smile. They've had that particular discussion a thousand and a half times, they don't need to add another one. "I gotta prove it to myself, pal. That I'm not - _that_ , that I'm not _just_ what's written in history books and museum displays and HYDRA's greatest hits. That I'm more than the boogeyman under every spy-kid's bed. After all the bad I've done, I gotta - I _want_ to be able to do some good again. For better or worse, I'm still here, and I can't spend the rest of my life too afraid of what I used to be to try to become something better."

The floorboards in the hall creak a little, and Bucky's acutely aware that at least Sam if not Maria and the rest of the whole damn Tower is listening in, but he keeps his eyes trained on where Steve's still looks some measure of fearful and sad, understanding and hating every second. He kisses him, just because he can, because that's one more point to prove to himself. He's alive and he wants to be _living_ ; this is one more step forward.

"You gotta let me go, Stevie," he says quietly, insistently - somewhere deep he won't acknowledge, desperately too. "I can do this."

Everything hangs on the seconds that stand between them, the tenuous grasp he has on his humanity and his connection to the things around him that are real. It'd be plenty easy to go without Steve's approval, always easier to ask forgiveness than permission, but Steve is his captain and his king, his rock in the middle of the storm. He needs Steve to know he is capable of this, of being useful and contributing to whatever beautiful fucked up thing they have going in this Tower. He needs Steve to accept him as he is, because without that - well. He'll be what he is, just a little bit angrier without much to tie him down.

It's a sentiment he shares with Bruce on quiet afternoons with tea and self-imposed isolation. The idea is there.

But a few seconds is all it takes. Steve sighs like he's well put-upon, but a cautious smile still presses against Bucky's lips. "Well, if you're gonna play the sap no matter what I say, then by all means." He pulls away, but not before knocking his own knuckles against Bucky's chin in childish retaliation for earlier. "Knock 'em dead, slugger."

Outside the room, there's a collective groan and Sam's distinct laughter. It's all the support he needs.

* * *

When he slips into an abandoned, half-burnt out garage in a rural village that honestly hasn't seen better days, he finds Natasha with bruises on her face, blood caked down her side, and a gun trained between his eyes that he knows without even looking doesn't actually have anything chambered.

It takes her a moment to realize who he is, what it means for him to be here, and then she just laughs. He grins.

" _Gotovy li my poyti domoy, Natal'ya_?"

She drops her gun, catches the new, fully loaded one he tosses to her, then runs a hand through her messy hair.

"Yes," she says calmly with a warm fondness in her eyes that almost hurts to see, but he manages not to look away. "I think we are."

**Author's Note:**

> When they land on the Tower's helipad, Nat is immediately swept away by Barton, and no one but Tony is really shocked by his sudden reappearance ( ' _the_ Hell _did you come from, Katniss, I swear to god, if you've been nesting up here this whole time -_ ). The real surprise comes when Maria gets to Bucky before Steve does. He resists the urge to lower his gaze and stand at attention, but only just so.
> 
> The fact that she's still smiling helps. She folds her arms across her chest, measuring him up one more time before lifting her chin in approval.
> 
> "Well done, son."
> 
> It's such a perfect imitation of the way Steve approaches the modern heroes, the cops and the EMTs and everyone that's there to help them on the streets, that for a moment, they can pretend she's being entirely serious - before doubling over in laughter right as the man with a plan himself arrives.
> 
> "What?" Steve asks, looking endearingly baffled. Nat calls it his wounded puppy look, and it isn't inaccurate, which only makes Bucky laugh harder. "What happened?"
> 
> "Nothing," he says breathlessly, rolling his eyes and throwing an arm around Steve's shoulders ( the metal one, the one that doesn't quite belong yet but will get there someday ) when confusion turns to petulance. "Really, pal. It's nothing. It's just - "
> 
> He looks off to where Sam and Pepper are impatiently gesturing for them to come inside, a bottle of wine and red plastic cups already being spilled in their excitement. He shakes his head, breathes in, breathes out.
> 
> "It's good to be home."
> 
> * * *
> 
> ( As a side note, my good friend The Google has not-so-reliably informed me that the Russian Bucky says to Nat is roughly "Are we ready to go home, Natalia?" If anyone notices it's incorrect or there's a better way to phrase it, please do let me know! )


End file.
